Context and comment
“A shift of focus from social critique to personal critique can be perceived in the art of younger generation artists Yang Na (b. 1982) and Han Yajuan (b. 1980) who both grew up as only children in a world defined by global consumer culture. Using artistic styles that derive from animation, computer games and second life, their works have an inward-looking focus. In Yang Na’s Pimple 2007 (page 154) we are drawn into the self-absorbed world of beauty, fashion and appearance. Having discovered a nasty looking eruption on her forehead, the girl lances it with a needle. ‘These women are a symbol of our era of consumption,’ Yang explains. ‘Being young means being both perfect and imperfect, gorgeous and sick, happy and despondent.”
(Roberts C. , Go Figure! Contemporary Chinese Portraiture, 2012)
Further reading
“All Eyes Inward” in Newsweek Magazine:
www.thedailybeast.com
Yang Na’s artworks:
www.yang-na.com
The style - Animamix
www.yang-na.com
Animamix: From Modernity to Eternity
www.mocashanghai.org
Roberts, C. (2012). Go figure! Contemporary Chinese Portraiture. (D. C. Roberts, Ed.) Canberra and Sydney, Australia: National Portrait Gallery and The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation.
